Ecosystems
Kevalan
California Join Date: 2014-09-15 Member: 198547Members
California Join Date: 2014-09-15 Member: 198547Members
In many places in these forums I have seen people post about creatures and interactions between the player and their environment, and Ive seen developer posts about this topic. I felt the need to make an account here solely to present a point. I noticed that in one dev post, they were mentioning how they didn't want eco-based systems to happen off-screen, to make it simpler for the game to calculate.
Posts like this make me very, very worried for Subnautica. If this is truly supposed to be a game about exploration, the people who will be drawn here don't want gimmicks, they don't want pretty things, they want real wonder and learning. Just seeing something isn't very rewarding. Tons and tons of games have made tours, and I hope this isn't one of them. (Dear Esther, anyone?) A tour with dangers to avoid is hardly better. When you make this game, you should have to tinker with the virtual ecosystem over and over to get it just right, because there were unforeseen consequences. You should have to patch the game 6 months after launch, because you didn't test the ecosystem 1000 hours into generation. This will mean success.
Subnautica, if it truly wants to reinvent exploration as a genre, needs to put the most intricate detail in their ecosystems. As a scuba diver with over 200 dives under my belt, I find the most enjoyment in the observation of these fascinating creatures and the ecosystems in general. In Far Cry, I got to see a panther pounce on a tapir over and over. That wasn't interesting, in the slightest. That panther was spawned somewhere and then came and showed you this. Big whoop. Ive seen more impressive things in actual documentaries, or other games that aren't attempting to show something mundane in a mundane fashion. I'm aware that what you're showing isn't mundane in appearance, but if it is all scripted and based on triggers, then it will be pretty boring to watch, and being shown in a mundane fashion, like problem #2 with panther vs tapir in a video game.
We should see YouTube videos that are practically hour-long documentaries detailing the habits and extra-species interactions as well as intra-species interactions of these creatures you create. There should be people (not everyone, of course) who play this game and spend hours staring at a shrimp to uncover its hidden secrets, to find out how it breeds, how it feeds, what feeds on it. That is what is most interesting about being underwater. The learning. If you can make a game where there are some people who can fall in love with just one species, and spend hours and hours learning everything there is to know about it, and this person can STILL be surprised by behavior unseen, you will have succeeded in making an underwater exploration game.
Things don't actually have to happen off-screen, but they should be calculated behind it. I understand the desire to have your hard work be seen, but trust me, if a player accidentally (or intentionally) affects the ecosystem in a drastic way somehow, they will understand the scope of what is going on if they come back later and find them all to be gone. That will be impressive, even without the creatures dying in front of them, which is only an observation. People want real change, and real effects, and limiting yourself to things that can be done in front of the player is very sad, indeed.
Edit: If you find yourself reading this post, and have nothing to add to the discussion, please at least click the "Agree" button if you agree with me, or disagree if you do not. I am hoping that my opinion gets some attention, as I would be very sad to see this mistake being made. Maybe my idea of what this game should be like isn't what everyone is hoping for. I also want to add that despite mostly complaining about this one topic, I am actually very excited for this game, and am trying to present my opinion as best I can, to hopefully avoid my fears and improve the game!
Posts like this make me very, very worried for Subnautica. If this is truly supposed to be a game about exploration, the people who will be drawn here don't want gimmicks, they don't want pretty things, they want real wonder and learning. Just seeing something isn't very rewarding. Tons and tons of games have made tours, and I hope this isn't one of them. (Dear Esther, anyone?) A tour with dangers to avoid is hardly better. When you make this game, you should have to tinker with the virtual ecosystem over and over to get it just right, because there were unforeseen consequences. You should have to patch the game 6 months after launch, because you didn't test the ecosystem 1000 hours into generation. This will mean success.
Subnautica, if it truly wants to reinvent exploration as a genre, needs to put the most intricate detail in their ecosystems. As a scuba diver with over 200 dives under my belt, I find the most enjoyment in the observation of these fascinating creatures and the ecosystems in general. In Far Cry, I got to see a panther pounce on a tapir over and over. That wasn't interesting, in the slightest. That panther was spawned somewhere and then came and showed you this. Big whoop. Ive seen more impressive things in actual documentaries, or other games that aren't attempting to show something mundane in a mundane fashion. I'm aware that what you're showing isn't mundane in appearance, but if it is all scripted and based on triggers, then it will be pretty boring to watch, and being shown in a mundane fashion, like problem #2 with panther vs tapir in a video game.
We should see YouTube videos that are practically hour-long documentaries detailing the habits and extra-species interactions as well as intra-species interactions of these creatures you create. There should be people (not everyone, of course) who play this game and spend hours staring at a shrimp to uncover its hidden secrets, to find out how it breeds, how it feeds, what feeds on it. That is what is most interesting about being underwater. The learning. If you can make a game where there are some people who can fall in love with just one species, and spend hours and hours learning everything there is to know about it, and this person can STILL be surprised by behavior unseen, you will have succeeded in making an underwater exploration game.
Things don't actually have to happen off-screen, but they should be calculated behind it. I understand the desire to have your hard work be seen, but trust me, if a player accidentally (or intentionally) affects the ecosystem in a drastic way somehow, they will understand the scope of what is going on if they come back later and find them all to be gone. That will be impressive, even without the creatures dying in front of them, which is only an observation. People want real change, and real effects, and limiting yourself to things that can be done in front of the player is very sad, indeed.
Edit: If you find yourself reading this post, and have nothing to add to the discussion, please at least click the "Agree" button if you agree with me, or disagree if you do not. I am hoping that my opinion gets some attention, as I would be very sad to see this mistake being made. Maybe my idea of what this game should be like isn't what everyone is hoping for. I also want to add that despite mostly complaining about this one topic, I am actually very excited for this game, and am trying to present my opinion as best I can, to hopefully avoid my fears and improve the game!
Comments
You Sir make a very good point and the explanation well thought through. I'm a fan of simulations myself and I enjoy just sitting and watch games that essentially play themselves. Like SimCity or The Settlers. Hell I could even watch a traffic simulation if I could optimize the traffic lights. Sounds strange? I guess it is. Not many people would enjoy that kind of game. I don't represent a significant target audience.
That is a common dilemma for game developers. You have a crazy idea and want to create something that hasn't been done before. You are all excited about this new system you have in mind. But then you realize it would be a lot of effort and very few people would buy it. Problem.
So from an economic perspective it is best to spend resources on stuff that is both easy to do and of high value to lots of customers. At least in the beginning. Once you have done all the "easy win"s you can move on to more unique stuff. Unfortunately there sometimes is a tradeoff between satisfying niche audiences and satisfying the masses. You don't want to ruin the fun of 1000 players because another 10 players would enjoy some more realism.
TL;DR: Creating good simulations that are fun to play, watch, and manipulate is hard. I want them anyway.
The hard thing is to make sure the ecosystem is stable enough to not be driven into crash cases (ie, all fish die, then all predators then nothing left). I guess you could put limits on it and force respawn things to keep it totally emptying out, but it is hard.
The game Victoria simulated the worlds population in 'areas' and as specific groups of POP in each area:
click here and scroll down to "the population box" section
You could do the same with local wildlife populations (in the background) and then render them when a player gets close.
We need this. I don't want a world made around me, I want to make myself fit the world.
edit: one more thing to say, the thing about "underwater" in real life is that we still barely know anything. If I ever at one point feel I truly cant learn anything more from an ecosystem, the game has made a large failure.